Observational assessment of communication disorders in vascular dementia patients with right hemisphere damage

After stroke, communication disability often occurs, with left side brain-damaged (LBD) patients having aphasia and right side brain-damaged (RBD) patients having deficits in conversation, despite their apparent lack of any language disability. Herein, we developed an original scale, the Daily Communication Assessment Scale (DCAS) and compared the scores from the RBD and left side brain-damaged patients with their matched Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores.

This cross-sectional survey involved three pairs of MMSE-matched patients (n = 6) with vascular dementia who met the following criteria: a history of stroke, unilateral localized basal ganglia legion (as shown by magnetic resonance imaging/computed tomography images), MMSE scores ≥9, and ability to engage in minimal conversation. Patients' MMSE scores were 11, 12, 15, 16, and 19. We interviewed patients' primary staff regarding their abilities to communicate over the previous 4 weeks in order to evaluate them using the DCAS.

In each MMSE-matched pair, the RBD patient had a lower Deviation score on the DCAS, and in two pairs, the left side brain-damaged patient had a lower score for Coarse speech.

We believe that communication disorder in the RBD patients may be evaluated with the DCAS. We plan to standardize the DCAS and apply it for use in rehabilitation in the future.